M 6.5 Earthquake Shakes Southwest Maluku, 1 House And 1 Middle School Building Damaged

Illustration of an earthquake. (Between)

MALUKU - An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 damaged the building of SMP Negeri 5 Hila Village, Romang Island, Southwest Maluku Regency (MBD), Maluku Province. The earthquake occurred on Friday, May 27 at around 11.36 WIT.

"When the earthquake occurred, the walls of the school suffered moderate damage to about 45 percent of the walls," said Head of Maluku BPBD, Henry Farfar in Ambon, quoted from Antara, Friday, May 27.

The epicenter was located in the sea at a distance of 85 km southwest of MBD Regency, Maluku with a depth of 104 km and the earthquake location point was located at coordinates 8.64 LS-127.2 East Longitude or 62 km south of Wonreli-Kisar, MBD Regency.

In addition to the junior high school building, a resident's house under the name of Hendri Batkormbawa in Tiakur Village, Moa Island, Moa District, was also reported to have suffered minor damage to its walls.

According to him, the rapid response team and MBD District BPBD officers were dispatched to the field after the tectonic earthquake to collect data on the damage.

"The interim report from the team stated that there were no fatalities or injuries and no residents had evacuated, but only light and moderate damage was found on Moa Island and Romang Island," he said.

From the preliminary results of data collection, the team found that material losses in public facilities in the form of a damaged junior high school building damaged hundreds of millions of rupiah, while the material loss of one resident's house which contained four people was estimated at around Rp. 8.7 million.

The MBD Regency area consists of a number of islands including Leti Island, Moa, Lakor, Wonreli-Kisar, Wetar, and Romang Island so the team is still monitoring and collecting data on disaster locations.

"The BPBD Task Force at MBD has also made efforts to handle it by providing an alert status to the school building and coordinating with related agencies such as the Education and Culture Office," said Henry Farfar.